


On the Subject of Wooing

by Roshwen



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: (well sort of anyway), A little angst, Also Stumpy's back!, And the three LITs being adorable with each other, Because it's Jake's chapter and you all know the guy, But mostly sweetness, Fluff, Multi, Rating's gone up because Ezekiel is a little shit who can't keep his hands to himself, Romance, Warning for heavy use of poetry in the first chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 03:06:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12785607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roshwen/pseuds/Roshwen
Summary: Jake leaves them poetry. Ezekiel cracks them with his touches like a safe. Cassandra crochets until her fingers bleed. And it all means the same thing.





	1. Jake

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Jake’s version of romance starts and ends with poetry.

It starts out innocently enough, with a scrap of paper on Cassandra’s desk one cold January afternoon. She almost misses it, tucked away as it is between her notebooks. When she sees it, however, and sees the looks Jake is not-so-secretly stealing at her to see if she’s seen it yet, she smiles, carefully tugs it free from under the notebooks and slips it into her sleeve. There it sits for the rest of the day, until Eve and Flynn have gone home, Jenkins has wandered off to do something of vital yet mysterious significance in the kitchen and the three of them are left in the Annex alone.

There’s a comfortable tension in the air, brought on by long looks followed by soft smiles and the knowledge that _you’re here_ and _you’re mine_ and _I’m yours,_ knowledge that is new and exhilarating and sets Cassandra’s skin buzzing with happiness.

When she slowly extricates the paper and folds it open, studiously not looking at the way Jake isn’t even pretending to read his book anymore, all that happiness turns inwards. Heart singing, eyes stinging and blood thrumming in her ears, she reads:

 _I know a sweet suburban girl,_  
_She’s witty, bright and brief;_  
_With dimples in her cheeks; and pearl  
_ _In rubies set, for teeth._

 _Beneath her glossy auburn hair_  
_There beams the blue, blue eye,_  
_Bright as the star of evening there  
_ _Where the yellow sunbeams die._

The words dance across her skin like warm fingers ghosting over her, barely touching her and she suppresses a shiver at the feeling.

‘What you got there, princess?’ Ezekiel asks, looking back and forth between her and Jake with laughter dancing in his eyes. Cassandra doesn’t reply, she’s too busy staring at the paper and smiling like a fool, but Jake gets up and makes his way over to her. ‘You wanna hear the rest?’ he asks, his voice a soft murmur as he draws her into his arms, lips brushing in a not-quite kiss against her cheek. Cassandra nods and tucks her face in that hollow under his chin where it fits so perfectly, it’s almost as if it was made for her. As Jake rumbles the rest of the poem into her ear, Cassandra furtively wipes her eyes against his shirt before she looks up at him and whispers: ‘If you wanted a kiss, all you had to do was ask.’

Jake chuckles and squeezes her a little tighter before pressing the sweetest, most gentle kiss to her lips. ‘I like this way better,’ he whispers back and Cassandra doesn’t mind at all.

\---

A few weeks later, Ezekiel also finds a piece of paper on his desk. This one sticks out, because Ezekiel is a big fan of the clean desk policy and tries to keep his desk as paperless as possible (they didn’t invent the cloud for nothing, you know). Before he can read what it says, however, the clippings book starts to shake, Eve calls them all to attention and there’s work to do, a world to save.

Which they do, and they do it brilliantly if Ezekiel says so himself. It’s just a bit of a shame that in all the running about, he lost the piece of paper somewhere and even though he has turned the entire Annex upside down, he can’t seem to find it. Which bums him out more than he’d like to admit.

He is still inwardly moping the next day, when Jake walks past his desk and suddenly there’s another note lying next to his laptop. Of course, Jake’s fingers are not as dexterous as Ezekiel’s and to a professional thief, the way he sneaked the paper out of his sleeve and on to the desk was blatantly obvious. But that doesn’t matter. All that matters is what the note says as Ezekiel folds it open: _Try not to lose this one, because I’m not writing it again._

Followed by:

 _I know your eyes are nothing like the sun;_  
_Coral is far more red than your lips' red;_  
_If snow be white, why then your skin  is dun;_  
_If hair be wires, black wires grow on your head._  
_I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,_  
_But no such roses see I in your cheeks;_  
_And in some perfumes is there more delight_  
_Than in the breath that from your kisses reeks._  
_I love to hear you speak, yet well I know_  
_That music has a far more pleasing sound;_  
_I grant I never saw a god there go;_  
_I know you, when you walk, tread on the ground:_  
_And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare  
_ _As any he belied with false compare._

It takes a couple of rereads but a quick Google search and a breathless realization later, Ezekiel practically drags Jake into the Library by the collar of his stupid plaid shirt.

‘You,’ he says, pinning Jake to one of the bookshelves while Jake is grinning that _stupid_ wide grin at him, the way he does when he thinks he’s done something _clever,_ ‘you _rewrote Shakespeare_ for me?’

‘I don’t think he would object,’ Jake says, right before Ezekiel finally kisses that _stupid stupid_ smirk of his face.

Ezekiel does not lose the note again. It is kept safe in the drawer of his nightstand, together with the one picture he kept of his family and his emergency passports.

\---

Then there are vampires and a terrible secret and a miracle. But the miracle also has taken Cassandra’s hair and it almost took her gift as well and there’s something new and weird and possibly magical going on in her brain that she doesn’t understand and she’s _terrified._ She doesn’t show it, doesn’t tell her boys because they are worried enough as it is. And anyway, as long as they keep holding her tight enough (and they are holding her _very_ tight), eventually she’ll be okay.

Eventually.

Hopefully.

When Cassandra wakes up a couple of days later, still in the hospital, there’s a small book on her nightstand with a note on top and a bookmark stuck somewhere near the end. The note is in Jake’s scribbling handwriting and says: _From both of us. No. 116._

The book is a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets. When she finds sonnet 116, helpfully marked by the bookmark, she barely finishes the first four lines before she bursts into tears, so loud that it brings Jake and Ezekiel rushing through the Back Door into her room.

Ezekiel immediately starts scolding Jake because _it was not supposed to make her cry like this, this was a stupid idea cowboy look at her_ while Jake holds her, rocking her gently and murmuring words into her hair that feel like kisses and taste like honey.

She’s a lot less terrified after that.

\---

Then one week, Ezekiel has nothing but nightmares for three nights straight. This is annoying, because he thought he had finally gotten through the worst part and it also means that he has to finally come clean and tell Jake and Cassandra that he does, in fact, remember the case with the video game.

They do not take it well.

But after Jake has yelled at him for what seems like a couple of hours and the hurt _I thought you trusted us_ in Cassandra’s eyes is replaced by a sadness that Ezekiel can’t bear to look at, they ask him what he needs. And when he tells them he needs them to leave him alone for a while, they go and do exactly that.

Which is fine. It’s great. It means he can now have his nightmares and panic attacks in peace.

He just hopes like hell they’ll come back.

Because he is not so sure about that.

Because sometimes you can be the world’s greatest thief, one of the most brilliant hackers of your age and all around awesome person, and still be a complete berk.

Because two days later he walks into the Annex after a night that, for once, did not feature any rage people, to see a note on his desk. It’s not a poem this time, but after Ezekiel has read it, the paper crumples up between his fingers as he sags into his chair, barely breathing for fear he might implode with the mushroom cloud of emotion that’s rising up inside him.

_Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends._

_Come find us when you’re ready._

And when his legs finally stop feeling like jello and he can actually get up, Ezekiel goes and finds Cassandra and Jake waiting for him in the Library, with open arms and some of the best After Nightmare Week Chocolate Milk he has ever tasted.

\---

Of course, Jake’s little gifts of poetry are not just kept for big events like this. Oh no. He keeps leaving them scraps of paper, little notes, helpfully earmarked volumes whenever the mood takes him.

Sometimes his notes contain entire poems, sometimes it’s only a couple of lines. In those cases, Jake is more than happy to tell them how it goes from there.

Sometimes the words are flowery and romantic and make Cassandra go all warm and gooey inside (and Ezekiel as well, even though he would never admit to such a thing) and sometimes… well. Sometimes it’s more like this:

 _My love in her attire doth show her wit,_  
_It doth so well become her:_  
_For every season she hath dressings, fit,_  
_For winter, spring, and summer._  
_No beauty she doth miss,_  
_When all her robes are on:_  
_But Beauty’s self she is,  
_ _When all her robes are gone._

And they can all agree that those kind of poems are the best of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poetry references:
> 
> [My Suburban Girl,](https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-suburban-girl/) Samuel Alfred Beadle  
> [Sonnet 130,](http://nfs.sparknotes.com/sonnets/sonnet_130.html) with apologies to William Shakespeare  
> [Sonnet 116,](http://nfs.sparknotes.com/sonnets/sonnet_116.html) also by William Shakespeare  
> [John 15:13,](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+15%3A13&version=NIV) NIV  
> [My Love in her Attire,](http://theromantic.com/poetryclassic/myloveinherattire.htm) author unknown


	2. Ezekiel

To a thief, his hands are the most important tool and ever since he was little, Ezekiel Jones always kept his essentials within reach. That’s why it would only make sense that out of the three of them, Ezekiel would be the one to use touch to woo his partners.

Of course, Jake has always been a fan of getting physical, even before the three of them got their act together. And when Cassandra discovered that a relationship meant that she was not only allowed but even _encouraged_ to touch them, well. Let’s just say the boys have had to pry a clinging Cassandra Cillian off of them more than once (only if they really have to, though. Most of the time they are more than happy to let her play limpet for a while).

But where Jake usually goes for a large hand on Cassandra’s shoulder when they are looking at a clipping, and Cassandra grabs hold of Ezekiel’s sleeve during team briefings and doesn’t let go until the Back Door is opened, Ezekiel’s touches are light. A brush of fingers across Jake’s back as he walks past. A brief tug on Cassandra’s sweater as he brings her coffee. A small, barely there presence that only registers when it’s gone. And it’s nothing special, not really, because Jake’s hands and Cassandra’s clinging and Ezekiel’s caresses all mean the same thing: _just checking you’re still here. Just letting you know I’m still here as well._

Except when it _does_ mean something special. Ezekiel has never been one to wax poetical at someone (looking at you, cowboy) and even though they have made very clear where they stand with each other and what their feelings towards each other are, for some reason the words _I love you_ are still stuck somewhere deep in the back of Ezekiel’s throat.

But that’s okay. He can let his fingers do the talking for him.

\---

When the three of them sleep together for the first time, they spend the entire following day dancing around each other, wondering what this is going to mean and where they are going to go from here. Cassandra knows they should probably talk at some point, but she doesn’t want to. Because if they start to talk about _whatever this is,_ the boys might say that it’s just a bit of fun.

That they like her, but that’s it.

Or, even worse, that this was a mistake and they should probably never speak of this again.

At the end of the day, Cassandra’s imaginary conversations with Jake and Ezekiel have spiraled so far down that she’s about ready to burst into tears at the sight of them. So when Ezekiel walks up to her desk and sits himself down at the edge, looking down at her with his usual happy grin, she takes a deep breath and braces herself for whatever is coming.

But Ezekiel stays silent. His grin fades away as he sees how tense she suddenly is and is replaced by a soft look in his eyes that is entirely new to Cassandra. As she closes her eyes, unable to look at him now that he’s this close, she feels two fingers brushing across her cheek, so light she barely even feels them. A strand of hair is gently tucked behind her ear before he cups her cheek with one hand, thumb stroking slowly back and forth. She swallows, leans in and rubs against his hand like a cat because her experience with men might be limited, but she doesn’t think this means Ezekiel is about to tell her that last night was the worst night of his life.

She’s right. When she opens her eyes, Ezekiel is smiling at her again as she covers his hand with hers and holds on tight.

Of course, things are not solved with a simple touch. They still need to talk, but to Cassandra, there’s already an entire conversation in the simple feeling of Ezekiel’s palm against her skin.

\---

One afternoon, Jake gets a phone call. It starts out pretty good and Jake spends a very nice half hour catching up with his mother, who brings him up to speed with all the shenanigans his various brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews and nieces have been getting themselves into. It’s comfortable and it’s familiar and it’s _good_ to finally talk to his family like this again.

Then Jake’s mother passes the phone to his father.

Another half hour later, Jake is not as happy anymore. When he comes back into the Annex, eyes burning, chest feeling like it’s about to burst and a fury churning in his gut because _that bastard still blamed him for the company going under, still didn’t think he was worth a damn, still_ wasn’t proud of him, Eve takes one look at him and quietly asks if he wants to go to the gym and punch something. Jake shakes his head. He is far too angry to start punching things; in this state of mind, it won’t be long before he starts to punch people and that is a road he does not want to step on. Eve nods, then beats a tactful retreat to the Library. Leaving Ezekiel and Cassandra to deal with him.

Or maybe not. Because as soon as Cassandra comes up to him, with kind eyes and a soft voice full of pity, Jake also tells her to go away _now._ It’s almost a snarl, Cassandra flinches and Jake feels even worse.

‘M sorry, Cassie,’ he manages to say, ‘just… please. Go.’

Before he starts yelling at her as well. Before he starts crying. Before he starts throwing things, starts tearing the entire Annex apart because right now, that seems to be the only way to deal with the growing storm of raging bitterness and resentment inside. And he does not _ever_ want Cassandra to see him like that.

Cassandra swallows, eyes brimming with tears, but she nods and she goes.

That only leaves Ezekiel.

At first, Jake isn’t aware that Ezekiel is still there. After all, one of the most important skills a thief learns _very_ early on is to make themselves invisible. It’s hard to remember sometimes, obnoxiously present as the guy can be, but Ezekiel Jones did not become one of the best thieves in the world by bouncing through a museum, yelling at the top of his lungs how he was going to steal himself a masterpiece.

Ezekiel must have turned on the thief mode because for all Jake knows, he is completely alone at the moment. However, some ten minutes after Jake has slumped forward into his chair, there are light footsteps behind him and two gentle hands drop onto his shoulders. When Jake tries to say something, tries to force words through a throat that feels like it’s cut up by shards of glass, a squeeze of fingers tells him it won’t be any use.

In the half hour that follows, there is no talking. Just the warm pressure of Ezekiel’s hands on Jake’s shoulders, sliding down the back of his shirt and making their way up again. Fingers dig into rigid muscles until they lose some of their tension. Heat seeps back into Jake’s skin, chasing away the ice cold rage from before. It’s not a massage, there’s nothing sensual about it but it feels more intimate than some of the kisses they’ve shared and when Ezekiel starts carding through Jake’s hair, fingernails scraping against his scalp and dissolving the tension headache before it even starts, Jake’s eyes are starting to sting again, but this time for an entirely different reason.

‘Thank you,’ he finally mutters in a voice that sounds like a rusty rasp. Ezekiel doesn’t reply, but the soft tug he gives Jake’s ear says more than enough.

\--- 

Obviously all the touching isn’t _just_ for Cassandra’s and Jake’s benefit. I mean, if you had the chance to run your hands through Jake’s hair on a regular basis, wouldn’t you take it?

Also the feeling of Cassandra curling into Ezekiel during movie night, head resting on his shoulder so he can wrap an arm around her and start drawing delicate patterns across her stomach, making her hum and sigh and melt against him? When he can do that and then make her giggle as well, because he knows exactly where she’s the most ticklish? Best feeling in the world, without a doubt.

You see, here’s what Ezekiel does for his partners: he pays attention. He watches and listens and runs his fingers over their skin, carefully mapping their bodies out in his head. Like they’re a safe, waiting for him to crack them open with just the right amount of pressure.

And boy, does it pay off.

It pays off one night when Ezekiel manages to crack Cassandra like a Glenn-Reeder safe in under two minutes flat. Jake has barely had time to get his boots off when she is already gasping out Ezekiel’s name, bucking on his fingers and coming with the force of the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs.

Afterwards, she lies blinking at the ceiling and wondering _what the hell just happened_ and only vaguely aware of some kind of excitement going on next to her. When the world finally drifts back into focus, she sees that Jake is flat on his back as well with the exact same stunned expression on his face while Ezekiel is sitting at the foot of the bed, surveying his handiwork and grinning like a cat that has discovered how to use a can opener.

He doesn’t keep grinning for long, though. Because as soon as Jake and Cassandra have their breath back, they let him know _exactly_ what they think of cocky thieves with clever fingers.


	3. Cassandra

As for Cassandra, it starts with Stumpy.

One day, Ezekiel walks into the Annex to find that someone has apparently put a lump of rock on his desk. Which is weird and a bit annoying because unlike some cowboys who shall not be named, Ezekiel tries not to let his desk become a disaster area. Stacks of papers, week old coffee cups or strange lumps of rock from god knows where will only get in the way of being awesome.

Then he gets closer and the lump of rock turns out to be a 4 inch high, light grey wool reproduction of his tragically departed gargoyle. When he picks it up, a bit breathless because _what the hell,_ he turns it around in his hands, feeling the way it gives a little under his fingers and noticing all the little details. There is the slightly woebegone expression, the ridges in the folded up wings on its back, he can even move the arms and legs so that it sits in the exact same position Stumpy always used to sit.

But just when he’s about to wonder whether this is some kind of really, _really_ weird gargoyle reincarnation, Jenkins walks in and gives an irritated hum. ‘Mr. Jones, please tell Miss Cillian to keep her very charming handicrafts out of the professional workplace.’

_Holy shit._ ‘ _Cass_ made this?’ Ezekiel asks, staring wide eyed at the tiny figure and then up at Jenkins. ‘ _How?’_

‘I believe it’s called crochet,’ Jenkins says, shaking his head at the incredulous look on Ezekiel’s face. ‘Miss Cillian is in the Library if you want more details.’

She is and when Ezekiel finds her, he loses no time in dragging her physically out of her chair, pressing her up against the bookshelf and kissing her senseless.

‘Not that I’m complaining,’ Cassandra says, laughter bubbling in her voice as Ezekiel starts pressing kisses all over her cheeks, her forehead, the bridge of her nose, ‘but what’s this about?’

‘Stumpy,’ Ezekiel says, breaking off his kiss attack for a moment to look at her, disheveled and flushed and wide eyed and _his._ ‘You made me a Stumpy?’

Cassandra’s eyes grow wide with surprise and she starts explaining how it’s _nothing,_ Ezekiel, it was just something she did last week because she was bored and she had a lot of spare grey wool lying around and _no you are not getting on your knees because of this come back here you idiot_ , but Ezekiel doesn’t listen. Or at least, he does stand up when she gives a violent pull of his hair so that he has to, but even then he does not let go of her. Instead he wraps her up tight in both arms, buries his face in the crook of her neck and whispers in a voice that does _not_ sound wet at all: ‘Thank you’.

Cassandra smiles, cards her fingers through his hair and holds him close, quietly deciding that if it makes Ezekiel this happy, she’ll make him a hundred Stumpies.

Stumpy Jr. gets a place of honor on Ezekiel’s nightstand. When Jake sees it, he only laughs at it a little before gruffly admitting that it does look very good. Which Ezekiel figures is Jake speech for ‘you’re a bunch of saps but I love you anyway.’

\---

See, you have to do something when you’re fifteen, alone in a hospital bed and the numbers won’t stop unless you give yourself something to count.

Or when you’re twenty, you’ve already lived longer than anyone thought you would and the only thing that keeps your mind from spiraling into a black pit of despair is a needle (or two) and a ball of yarn.

 

Or when you’re twenty-five and by now it looks like you will live whole lot longer (if your job doesn’t get in the way, of course) but there are still numbers dancing round and round in your brain. And anyway, it’s soothing whether you have a brain grape or not.

\---

Jake gets cold a lot. Especially in the winter, which for a southern boy who suddenly finds himself in Oregon is just _freezing_. He tries to hide it beneath layers and layers of shirts and plaid and hoodies and he even goes so far as to let his hair grow out a little so that it at least covers the tips of his ears, but when December rolls around he has to bow to the inevitable and break out the beanies.

Not that he _minds_ wearing a beanie, not per se. It’s just that, with all the running around they do, he goes through a _lot_ of them and it’s getting annoying. Jones keeps joking how his head can possibly get that cold, seeing as it’s got its own cover of magnificent bear fur. Jake just glares at him and tries not to shiver as he makes the third beanie trip to the store that month.

Then one morning he walks into the Annex, shaking the snow out of his hair because he lost his last beanie on a case _again,_ to find a large package on his desk, wrapped in Christmas paper.

It’s January.

There’s a note on the package in Cassandra’s neat handwriting: _Try not to lose these. If you do, the next ones will be pink._

When he unwraps the package, he finds five beanies in a deep dark blue, a matching scarf and a pair of dark grey fingerless gloves. They are made of heavy wool, sturdier than the Walmart quality he usually gets and a lot softer as well. Although the softness isn’t the only reason he can’t seem to stop running his fingers over them, or why he buries his face in the scarf for a long moment before he wraps it around his neck.

The smile Cassandra gives him when she sees him wearing the scarf and the beanie warms him up more than two pieces of wool ever could. Ezekiel starts to laugh, but the laugh turns into a fond smile that Jake and Cassandra both miss: Jake because he’s too busy hugging Cassandra and kissing her cheek in a thank you, and Cassandra because she’s tucked her face deep into the folds of the scarf and breathing in deeply before telling Jake that it is already starting to smell like him.

Jake does not lose the beanies this time. Whenever they are about to go on a case, he takes Cassandra’s beanie off and puts one of the cheap ones on if they’re going somewhere cold. At least he can afford to lose those.

Cassandra still gives him a baby pink beanie for his birthday, though. It looks surprisingly good on him and he wears it with pride (as long as Ezekiel is somewhere a really, really long way away).

\---

Then there’s the blanket.

Or rather, the Blanket, because when it’s almost 10 by 10 feet, it deserves a capital letter. It was born when Cassandra was fifteen and she’d just discovered the power of the crochet hook. Her first granny square looked more like a wonky triangle, but the next one came out a little better. As did the third one. And the one after that.

When she had ten squares in different shapes, sizes, colors and states of success, she started to wonder what to do with them.

Those ten squares were the start of the Blanket. In the ten or so years that followed, the Blanket grew bit by bit, square by square, until by now it’s this massive mountain of wool that will keep you warm in a blizzard. Even to Cassandra’s loving eye it looks wonky, patterns and colors from one part clashing horribly with each other, some squares made of smooth yarn and other of fluffy mohair (although that is a nightmare to work with and Cassandra deeply regrets her decision to buy three skeins of it because it looked so pretty in the shop) and the edges crooked and far from straight, because while Cassandra _tries_ to make all the squares the same size, yarn is fickle and 30 rows with one type of yarn are _not_ the same length as 30 rows with another type of yarn.

But it’s _hers._ No, scratch that, it’s _her._ It’s the one piece of her old life she kept when she moved out from her parent’s house, and the one thing that she never left behind wherever she went. There are squares in there she made when she was so terrified she could barely hold the hook. Or squares she made when she was feeling so empty that all she could do was move the hook through the yarn in a blind, rhythmic motion because at least it was _something_ to focus on.

There are happy squares in there as well. A couple she made after she started working at the Library. The ones she made when she was in the hospital _again_ but this time, she wasn’t alone and she wasn’t going to die anymore.

The ones she made the week after the three of them started dating.

The point is, the Blanket is her most personal possession. And when she takes her boys to her place for the first time, she goes into the kitchen to get them all something to drink and when she comes back, nearly drops the glasses she’s holding. Because Ezekiel is sitting with the Blanket in his lap, stroking it like it’s a cat while Jake is tugging at it to make it fall open so he can see the whole thing.

It’s not the fact that they’re touching something of incredible personal value without asking her that’s taking Cassandra’s breath away, though. It’s the way they look at it before they look up at her, _look_ at her, then back to the Blanket again and they _know._

They don’t make fun of its wonkiness. They don’t laugh at the mismatched colors. Instead Jake smiles and Ezekiel folds the Blanket back up and puts it away carefully, out of the way of Jake’s beer and Cassandra’s wine.

\---

When they’re back at her place again a couple of weeks later and Jake starts shivering because Cassandra’s apartment is rather old and drafty, Cassandra gets up and fetches the Blanket. She holds it out to Jake and once he’s wrapped himself up all nice and warm, he opens one Blanket-clad arm for her to snuggle underneath. Ezekiel immediately starts making protesting noises from the other end of the couch, so Jake rolls his eyes before he grumbles at him to come here and get his butt underneath the Blanket as well then, if he has to.

Cassandra is too short to give her boys the bear hugs they usually give her. In bed, she can only play jetpack instead of the big spoon. But as long as she can wrap her Blanket around the three of them, Cassandra is perfectly alright with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, I didn't actually find a Stumpy crochet pattern (although I did find some _adorable_ gargoyle patterns). If any of you feel inspired by this to make one, please let me know!


End file.
